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Controle

“Controle” is used for the act of checking/inspecting with the purpose of verification, but you can also use it to say that you have something “under control” or are “controlling” something. Sometimes it also refers to the location where the “controle” takes place, such as a check point. The related verb “to control” is “controleren”. You can be more specific about the kind of control by adding the appropriate noun, for example “paspoortcontrole”, “tassencontrole” or “alcoholcontrole”.

Note that the second ‘o’ in ‘controle’ is a short (but slightly prolonged) vowel despite only one occurrence of the consonant ‘l’.

– “Na een voetbalwedstrijd van het Nederlands elftal is er vaak alcoholcontrole langs de wegen.” (“After a football/soccer match by the Dutch football/soccer team drivers are often tested for alcohol along the roads.”)

8 thoughts on “Controle”

Hi Ivor,
Very good question! And I’m afraid I don’t have a satisfactory answer. When you say “het Nederlandse elftal” you emphasize that the team is ‘from the Netherlands’. When you say “het Nederlands elftal” you emphasize that the team is ‘representing the Netherlands’. The difference is subtle and it doesn’t work when the article is ‘de’. But this is what I think. If I find a better answer, I’ll let you know!

Hi Ivor,
Because it is such an interesting question I’ll answer it 🙂
“Tweedehands” is an adjective, so you have to decline it and hence it should be “een tweedehandse computer”.
However, here is the interesting bit, you can also say “tweedehandscomputer” like one can say “tweedehandsauto”. Here ‘tweedehands’ is no longer an adjective but has become part of the noun.

@Ivor – so, in case you don’t follow the Dutch (yet), the conclusion for now is that ‘tweedehandsauto’ is not possible.
Also, ‘tweedehands auto’ does not seem possible because for words with gender, an undeclined adjective supposedly implies an alternative meaning which is clearly not the case for ‘tweedehands auto’.
This is what I interpret for the case of ‘nouns with gender’ from the links at taaladvies.net.
To get back to your original question, following the rules at taaladvies.net, “Nederlands elftal” is an official name and a case of a ‘fixed combination’. Which is somewhat in line with my answer, even more so when you realize that always the Dutch football team is implied unless otherwise clear from context.